Houston Beer Week offers sneak peek at 8th Wonder Brewing

8th Wonder Brewing, the Eatsie Boys’ craft-beer project, is at least several weeks from having its product commercially available. But the eager should be able to sample some early versions of the new brew during Houston Beer Week, Nov. 10-17.

On tap for sure is a Nov. 14 beer dinner at Down House featuring three to five 8th Wonder brews, with Matt Marcus of 8th Wonder/Eatsie Boys and Benjy Mason of Down House handling the food.

Principal Ryan Soroka says 8th Wonder also plans to have “various test batches” available at some point during the week — he couldn’t say yet exactly when — at Hay Merchant, Petrol Station, Flying Saucer and Mongoose Versus Cobra. He told me today that the brewery has some 140 gallons prepared on the small Sabco Brew Magic system that will be distributed for sampling at no charge.

“We’re just going to give the beer away,” he said.

That avoids any legal issues and also will give the brewery some feedback as the brewers fine tune in preparation for firing up their full system once the city permits are in place. (Soroka said the beers should be for sale four to five weeks after those permits are in hand.) The test batches will vary in things like grain bill, amount of hops, etc.

Available for Houston Beer Week will be various iterations of the following:

Alt

Blonde, brewer with a wheat yeast

IPA

Rauch, one regular and one imperial

Vietnamese Coffee Porter

The latter beer, Soroka said, is part of an effort to make a beer that reflects the Houston culture. Local coffee guru David Buehrer (aka, @greenwaybarista) is making a cold batch of Vietnamese coffee that will be infused in the porter.